“The Brodsky Quartet are the team for the new century”, Gramophone magazine said when reviewing the quartet's last recording, Rhythm and Texture. It included the Quartet by Maurice Ravel and prompted Norman Lebrecht to comment that "all you want to do when the disc ends is play it again."
That CD was recorded at Potton Hall where the Brodsky Quartet has collaborated with Jeremy Hayes on several outstanding CDs, of Beethoven and Janacek and most recently on a disc of Encore pieces, arranged by the quartet for their 40th anniversary celebrations. That recording marked the beginning of their new, exclusive contract with Chandos Records and the day after this concert the Brodsky Quartet will begin their second CD for Chandos, of music by Debussy, including the wonderful work which he optimistically entitled "First Quartet". Would that he had written more of them.....
The concert also includes Debussy's magical Danse sacrée et danse profane for harp and strings in which the quartet will be joined by Sioned Williams, Principal Harpist of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and it will end with Shostakovich's Third Quartet. The Brodsky Quartet has made a speciality of playing Shostakovich's quartets and they will be performing all fifteen of them next year. The Third Quartet was written in 1945, between Shostakovich's Ninth and Tenth symphonies and it includes a gripping movement which Shostakovich is alleged to have called "The forces of war unleashed", which looks forward to the eruptive depiction of Stalin in Shostakovich's Tenth Symphony. The programme also includes one of Mozart's most extraordinary last works. An unmissable concert!
Programme:
Mozart: Adagio and fugue in C minor, K546
Debussy: Danse sacrée et danse profane
Debussy: Quartet
Shostakovich: Quartet No.3
Tickets which are £15 and are also available from our box office on 01728 885650 or from Serendipity, Southwold and Focus Organic, Halesworth